Digital Spy recently chatted to David Ames, who plays Dom, to hear all about the on-screen aftermath.

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What kind of a reaction have you seen to Arthur's death?

"The reaction has been overwhelming. My Twitter went into meltdown afterwards with the amount of comments. There wasn't any negative feedback whatsoever - everyone just said how amazingly it's been dealt with.

"It's been a really lovely response, especially because it's been difficult for us to keep it under wraps as much as we did. It's been such a significant storyline for me, Ellie [Fanyinka, who plays Morven] and Camilla [Arfwedson, who plays Zosia] because we all had so much stuff with Rob and on a personal level we're all friends. The reaction was a confirmation that we'd hopefully done it all justice."

Even though it was a difficult one, did you enjoy being part of such a big storyline?

"Absolutely. When we were told about it, it was a bit of a shock. But we realised that it was a really poignant way for Rob to go. It was also such a pleasure to be involved in a storyline that is relevant for a lot of people.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't been affected by cancer. We wanted to act out these scenarios that happen daily, do them justice and move people in a good way."

"Of course I was disappointed. I've only ever known the show with Rob in it. To play his best friend and then for him not to be around anymore makes it feel like a different show to me. That's not in any sort of bad way, but it's just taking away something that has been a cornerstone of my experience on Holby.

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"But I was also incredibly supportive of Rob's decision to go, because as actors we do move on and do other things. It's a great storyline and something that has affected everyone in the hospital. It also gave Rob a chance to stretch his legs as far as acting was concerned and to play something as real as he possibly could."

Will Arthur's death have a big effect on Dom?

"I think it will continue to have a big effect on him and rightly so. Dominic had finally found a best friend and in the most unlikely of people. He found someone he genuinely felt love and affection for, even though they would gripe and moan and bitch at each other!

"It's very significant when Dominic finds someone that he really cares about, because he hasn't really had that before. To me he's the kind of character who goes through life and doesn't really have people that he holds too close to himself, for fear of losing them. Therefore he generally keeps himself quite aloof.

"With Diggers he found a soulmate - someone who didn't quite fit in, in the same way as Dominic doesn't. They were an unlikely pairing and it's a struggle for him to get over the fact he's lost that."

"Well, Dominic doesn't deal with 'feeling' very well! The passion he feels for Arthur, their love and their friendship has to come out in another form of passion, which is anger. So Dominic starts to lash out and he emotionally shuts down."

What can we expect from next week's funeral episode?

"It's a huge one for Dominic. He struggles to deal with the funeral, and then everything else that happens in the episode seems to make it worse. The team are called back from the funeral to the hospital because of an emergency, and then a patient comes in with an uncanny resemblance to Arthur.

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"Dominic has to deal with that while he's mourning, grief-stricken and also guilty about having to leave the funeral. So there are a lot of heightened emotions and it's a really tense episode for him."

Dominic has quite a bit of tension with Sacha, doesn't he?

"Yes, Dominic and Sacha come to blows over the treatment of a patient and you see him lose his temper in such a way that's very typical of Dominic. It's because he just wants to get on. On that day, with everything that's happened, he just wants to concentrate on his job and bury his head in the sand.

"Sacha doesn't want him to be involved in a patient's surgery because he thinks Dominic is not in a fully capable mode. He makes the right decision to say no for safety reasons, but that riles Dominic."

Looking back, how did you feel about fans who wanted Dom and Arthur to be a couple?

"We continually got that! It's very, very funny. On a personal level those particular comments always made us laugh. Fans always like to create their own stories and relationships between characters that they've become very attached to. I'm very proud and pleased that they would want that to happen. It would have been lovely, but obviously story-wise it didn't in the end.

"As a gay man myself, it's always very nice when you have those straight friends who are so beyond comfortable with you that they can act in ways that other people would perhaps question.

"A good example of that is last year when we had the episode where Arthur kissed Dom on stage in front of his mother and father. That teased the audience with that kind of thing, but really it was a very beautiful bromance."

Are you happy to stick around on the show for a while longer?

"I am loving the show. Since arriving when I was only a guest for a few episodes as a love interest for Malick, I knew it was a special programme. When they invited me back to be a regular, I knew that it would be something I would thoroughly enjoy.

"At the moment I'm still really enjoying it. If there were to come a time where that wouldn't be the case, then I would move on and look elsewhere, but I adore everyone I work with and I'm really liking the storylines that I receive.

"I'm also learning. I'm a young actor, so this is my first long-standing gig. So I'm very happy where I am for the time being."